


Prompt: Sad and Unrelenting

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [135]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Codependency, Gen, Mind Control, Promises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 19:14:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12087573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: Bumping shoulders, laughing. The team had not expected Wanda and Bucky to get along so well, but they do. They both experienced trauma at the hands of Nazis, both been experimented on, both lost things vital to themselves with no hope of getting everything back. For all Bucky hates the idea of what she could do to his mind… he knows, too, that she would not ever do so. She knows how much of a betrayal that would be, how cruel.





	Prompt: Sad and Unrelenting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nanyoky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanyoky/gifts).



> I listened to Ms Mr's _[Twenty Seven](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNcvEsfAJhk)_ while writing this, which I did for Nell, for a prompt she sent in, readable [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/165310008080/prompt-bad-horrible-winterwitch-angst-possibly).

**i.**  
“I don’t wanna hurt her,” Bucky says quietly, a bottle of beer clasped between a hand of flesh and a hand of metal. “She’s been hurt enough. I know she  _would_ kill me if I asked, sure as Nat would, but Nat’s got more than enough red in her ledger for a lifetime and Wanda…” he trails off.

“You would save her the pain of once more being the cause of death of a loved one.” In the dim room, Vision’s gem glows softly.

“I know she blames herself for her brother. And she blames herself for a lot of things.” Bucky’s eyes are entreating as they fix on Vision. “I don’t want her to blame herself for this. And I know you care about her too - I’ve seen how you look at her. I know you wanna save her this pain too.”

Vision lets out a long sigh - he doesn’t need to breathe, doesn’t need to do a lot of things, but he can, and by behaving more human he sets the team at ease, by funnelling his quirks through a lens of humanity they can understand what he is meaning, saying, doing, without him having to spell everything out each time. “I do wish to save her pain,” Vision says softly. “If you turn back into the Winter Soldier, if you revert, or someone affects your brain and we cannot get you back, I will end your life before you can do anyone harm.”

Vision thinks there is something almost sick in the relief that takes Bucky’s shaking shoulders as he says this.

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
Bumping shoulders, laughing. The team had not expected Wanda and Bucky to get along so well, but they do. They both experienced trauma at the hands of Nazis, both been experimented on, both lost things vital to themselves with no hope of getting everything back. For all Bucky hates the idea of what she could do to his mind… he knows, too, that she would not ever do so. She knows how much of a betrayal that would be, how cruel.

“Besides,” she says, dancing hypnotic scarlet between fingertips. “The mind is… it is more out of reach now. With Pietro gone, after I  _felt_  him die… I do not know that I even  _can.”_

So they talk and they laugh and it is tentative but easy, and out of comfort and understanding and laughter blossoms something more.

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
“I would have thought you would consider me a rival,” says Vision. It is not a judgement, not a question, just a statement. “Given how close Wanda and I were becoming, before you were found.”

Bucky grins an easy smile. “Could say the same thing to you,” he says. “’cept it’s Wanda and I becoming close now.”

They watch each other, not warily, not uncertainly, just waiting to see where the conversation goes. 

Slowly, Vision nods. “She is not a thing to be fought over,” he says. “I am glad to be her friend.”

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
Wanda has enough scarlet in her to soothe Bucky’s mind from a nightmare, to soothe him when people use old codewords to try to stop his mind. Enough, but no more. 

It is  _enough_  though, a safety net that Bucky gladly falls into time and time again. 

“Thank you,” he whispers, opening his eyes to Wanda’s scarlet, Wanda’s hands above dancing above him, and he looks half in love.

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
With a half-completed Gauntlet on his hand, Thanos is half a god. He can destroy cities on a whim, warp space in ways it should never be, can crush people down with a thought.

But he doesn’t. That isn’t  _fun._

Thanos looks down over them, gathered to fight him, and stretches out a finger. 

“Soon,” he says, light gathering in his palm, at his fingertip. “Soon you will have more than me to fear.”

And Wanda can no longer feel Bucky’s mind.

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
Vision is beside Bucky as he raises his gun, points it at Steve’s armoured head.

“Wanda,” Vision says. “Can you-”

She’s spooling scarlet in her fingers, a cat’s cradle of crimson thread, trying to knot it into some kind of net that will catch all of Thanos’ influence and pull Bucky free.

It keeps flickering - fading.

Her hands are empty.

There are tears in her eyes as she shakes her head.

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
Steve launches himself at Thanos, Thor close behind. Tony lunges for Bucky’s back, tries to use metal strength against a metal arm, to hold Bucky long enough his shot goes wide. Wanda spools scarlet and scarlet and scarlet more into her palms, tries to make a pool - a  _puddle_  - the least amount that she can cast out and use to catch up Bucky’s mind, save him from the cage Thanos has framed his thoughts with.

She can’t. She can barely see Bucky’s mind at all.

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
It’s Vision who reaches out. Thor and Steve, Rhodey and Sam, Natasha and T’Challa and the Guardians and all their other allies attack Thanos, but here, in this small space it is just Wanda, those two dearest to her, and the one who has been her enemy so long it feels wrong to call him ally now.

Vision reaches out. Bucky thrashes in Tony’s hold, but Vision’s hand phases through, fingers outstretched. The gold of the stone on his brow illuminates his thoughts, makes them glow visibly instead of the pitiful shadows that are all she can see of everyone else. His mind is swimming in sorrow and regret.

She sees the tendons of his wrist flex, knows his fingers have closed around something as Bucky chokes, spasms, spits blood.

“I’m sorry,” Vision whispers, and pulls Bucky’s heart from his chest.

 

* * *

 

 **ix.**  
Wanda kneels beside his body. His heart is a red and fleshly lump on the ground beside them - stone and space dust, glistening in blood. Scarlet slides down her fingers, down her arms, rises out of her wrists in a gorgeous glowing matrix.

Wanda is trembling, minute shakes through her muscles and tendons, her jaw and belly, and the scarlet grows and pulses, brighter and stronger in anger and grief.

“Vision,” she says, and it is soft and sad and unrelenting. “Get out of the way.”

This is the only piece of forgiveness she will show him.

 

* * *

 

 **x.**  
The scarlet burns. This is what she has never told anyone. It is hers and it does not hurt her but it burns. The burn is right, is good, but it can burn her out. The burn is right, the burn is good, the burn is fire and fury and is why she is stronger when angry, stronger when grieving, stronger when something is driving her.

She tore vibranium for her brother. She shattered drones and stone and tore at the world as it tore from her.

Scarlet, untamed, snarls in fury across the battlefield.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


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